A Different Kind of Winter
by Ichko
Summary: Lissandra ends up in the world of Westeros years before the start of the events we are all familiar with... but how will her presence change them? No pairings (for now, at least)


**A Different Kind of Winter - Chapter 1**

**I do not own League of Legends or A song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones**

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><p>Nine years.<p>

It has been nine years since that strange woman entered their small happy world. Catelyn still remembers the day in which she become a part of their family, sort to speak, this woman with hair as white as snow, skin colder than ice.

Ned was just returning with his host, him and his old friend, king Robert the first having just finished putting down the Greyjoy rebellion. The strange woman was been carried in a cart, the men having found her on their way home, but a few leagues away, south of Winterfell. The Tully woman was never one for northerner lore, but she quickly knew why most men kept their distance from her. She did resemble an Other greatly, and even if she did not, her white hair was one of the distinctive features of the former rules – the Targaryans.

The woman remained unconscious for months and frankly Catelyn was unnerved by her very presence. Ned promised her on multiple occasions that he will personally put her down should she prove a threat, although that did little to ease her worries. She was born in the light of the seven and this… this was not natural. Her husband, on the other hand, insisted that they should take care of her, especially considering they found her underneath a lone heart tree, standing on a small frozen hill. The Tully daughter cursed the northerners and their superstitions for many months since that day.

No one really knew why she did not wake up. Maester Lywin said she was physically fit, no damage to her body, except for her blind eyes that did not react to the candle light, remaining blood red, and of course, the ice-cold skin. Those eyes of her… Catelyn was there when the old maester was examining that specific part of her anatomy and if her icy presence unnerved her before, she was outright frightened now. The red eyes, even when the measter claimed she was blind, even when she was unconscious, had an eerie feeling to them, the color appearing as if the eyes were bleeding, a barely visible glow to them.

Four months have passed since the day of her arrival to Winterfell that the strange woman woke up, blinking her blind eyes owlishly, her body weak from having not eaten, her voice hoarse for having not spoken. The Stark family was having breakfast when the old Maester more or less burst into the room, saying she has woken up.

It was all calm, at first. The first gesture between the two sides was a simple offering of water to the recently awoken woman, a gesture which she gingerly, yet somehow accurately took considering her disability. Catelyn was once again quick to spot the small things, somehow noticing the slight hints of mannerism that would put some of the highborn ladies to shame, the way she drank without making a sound in small gulp even when she needed the water as much as a man in the middle of a desert. Putting the glass down on the small table beside her bed before anyone can even reach out to assist her, the woman's blood red eyes found their way to the small assembly, sizing each of them as if she saw them.

The old Maester has already delivered two of her children with a third on the way, but she sincerely doubted his assessment of her eyes at that very moment.

They remained silent for a long time, no one moving, before her husband finally spoke, greeting her slowly and explaining who they are and where she was.

The strange icy woman, on the other hand, simply seemed…confused. She said that she has never heard of Winterfell… or the Starks… or the North, her voice having a slight echo to it, unnerving the occupants of the chamber. Ned then tried other notable locations through all of the known world. King's landing, Essos, Bravos, the Summer isles, Asshai.

Nothing.

The woman simply shock her head slowly, once again in a regal manner.

Finally, she introduced herself simply as Lissandra from the Freijords. When Ned responded that he has never heard of it, she tried other names. Valoran, Runethera, Shadow Isles, Ionia… nothing. She spoke of completely unknown places. Poor old Maester Lywin scrambled for his most detailed map of the world and searched every corner of it, yet nothing ever matched what the woman spoke of. It was not hard to come to the conclusion that the woman was a long way from home and had no means to get back… that is, if she was telling the truth.

Ned asked then the question that has been bugging him since he found her underneath the heart tree, all those months ago. He asked her did she know what an Other is, yet the implication was clear by the tone of his voice_. 'Are you an Other?'_

The woman, on the other hand, remained impassive, uttering a simple no, and that no haunted Catelyn up to this day. The strange woman had remained impassive throughout the conversation, so that no could have been genuine, yet at the same time, the woman was too unnatural to be anything but one of _them_. A simply question of '_Are you a threat?_, courtesy of her husband, and Lissandra became a part of her household, much to Catelyn's dismay. Not only did she have to stand that bastard boy, but now there was her.

For the first years the woman remained silent and mostly hidden, barely interacting with anyone in the castle. It was when one day that Sansa stumbled upon her playing a large harp, the ghostly beautiful sounds of the tune that she was playing guiding the young girl to her, that Lissandra's interaction with the people truly began.

At first, the woman seemed cold, even hateful and resentful to anyone. She only agreed to teach Sansa how to play the harp only to stop the girl's endless begging, but Catelyn never left her little girl alone with that woman. With Arya been born shortly after her awakening, Lissandra did not have much interaction with the only child that so far took after Ned in coloring. But it was when Bran was born that they caught a glimpse of something different within the strange woman living beneath their roof.

She was there when Catelyn gave birth, clad in a simple dark blue dress with white outline and a piece of white cloth wrapped around her blind eyes, her white hair loosed like a mane of snow. For some reason, known only to the gods, Ned offered her to hold her precious baby, and unfortunately, Catelyn was still too weak to protest. Did her husband not realize that the very cold the woman gave off could kill the newborn?

Yet to her surprise, nothing happened. Bran's screaming ceased as soon as white-haired woman held him, the infant starring at the blind eyes hidden behind the cloth while the woman stood as if stunned, seemingly gazing at the infant, her lips slightly parted.

Lissandra mumbled something, barely audible, the occupants just catching: _'…so long'_

Moments turned into minutes as everyone stood still in the room, no one taking their eyes off from the pair, before the newborn extended a chubby hand from beneath all the layers of cloth that he was wrapped in and clumsily grasped a stand of snow-white hair in his fingers, the babe erupting into giggles.

The icy woman seemed stunned by the simple action, her eyebrows visibly shooting up from beneath the blindfold. Ned, on the other hand, only smiled and relieved her off of Bran, returning him to his rightful place at Catelyn's side, much to her relief.

Since that day, the Lissandra had become more open, or at least around the children, but not by much. Somehow Catelyn still remembered the story that Lissandra told the children one day when old Nan was sick, the story of the three sisters she called it, the story of Avarosa, Serylda and Narcissia. A strange tale of power, freedom, choice and betrayal and from the way she spoke, Catelyn believed for a moment that the woman was there when it all happened.

Over the years, matters at the Stark household fell into a routine, each child developing its own unique personality and obsession and it was up to the adults to manage them, the staff of the castle been able to do so much. While she was still greatly distrusted Lissandra, there were times when Catelyn was happy for her presence. More than once she has somehow managed to convince Arya to go back to her needle lessons and there were the many times that she found the strange woman looking down at an embarrassed looking Bran, lecturing her boy about climbing ruined towers, her voice the same cold haunting echoing one, yet with the barest hints of something more in it.

Sansa, for some reason decided to look at the outlandish woman as a role model, something to which Catelyn had mixed feelings for. On one hand, she was still just as unnatural as all those years ago, the cold feelings around her having not lessened one bit. On the other hand, she was the extremely refined. Just the way she walked was more akin to gliding rather than walking. On that accord, there was probably no better role model for her daughter. If only Arya took as much interest in such matters as did Sansa...

Her eldest, Robb, had taken to calling her aunt Liss, and for some reason, even though the boy understood just how unnatural she was, was perfectly fine with her. He even once jokingly said something about her been winter itself and the connection to the Stark words. Words that even to this day, fourteen years since Catelyn took the last name Stark, still send chills down her spine.

'_Winter is coming.'_ Though the woman, tightening her woolen cloak around her shoulders.

The Tully woman was still not sure how she had begun thinking about all that as she made her way to the godswood, the letter from King's Landing clutched in her gloved hand. Her husband had returned but a few hours earlier, having taken Bran to see his first execution of a deserter of the Night's watch, much to her dismay.

She found him sitting underneath the Heath Tree, cleaning the ancestral weapon of house Stark, Ice, a valyrian steel long sword. He always did that after an execution, sitting beneath the pale branches and red leaves of the weirwood tree, the carved face starring at his back and the seemingly bottomless pond in front.

"I still feel strange like an outsider when I come here." Said Catelyn, catching her husband's attention.

"You are a mother of five northerner children. You belong here." Responded Ned, the eerie silence of the small forest enveloping them.

Catelyn brought her hand up, the letter clutched in it, handing it to her husband.

"It is from King's Landing… Jon Arryn has passed away." Ned's grim face instantly shifted into that of deep pain, quickly snatching the letter from her hand and reading it quickly.

"I know how much you loved that man, Ned…"

"He was like a father to me…"

"The king is coming here." Said Catelyn. She never knew lord Arryn and even though she grieved for her husband's loss, she still focused on the more important matter at hand- the royal visit and a certain white-haired woman that just might cause problems.

"Aye, and probably half the court with him… damn that Robert." Said Ned, cursing his old friend. He dearly missed the man, but sometimes, he truly lived up to his house's words, doing things without even an ounce of though.

"What about Lissandra?" suddenly asked Catelyn, her voice sharp.

"What about her?"

"She can cause problems with the royal party! You know how southerners are! You know how I am! She is not natural!" nearly shouted the Stark matriarch.

"She is of the north and has been loyal to us for nine years. That is enough for me. We will speak no more of this." responded her husband with an air of finality.

Catelyn opened her mouth to argue once again, yet decided against it. Nomatter her distrust for the woman, what her husband said was true. Nine years she was with them, and while distant, she was still a somewhat part of their household. The common folk, for all their superstitious, have begun to trust her. Catelyn truly hoped that the royal visit went without a problem, especially one caused by Lissandra.

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><p><strong>Hey everyone.<strong>

**For starters, a few clarifications. Yes, Lissandra is blind. I read somewhere that the reason she wears that strange hat ornament thingy is because someone from Volibear's race damaged her eyes. Plus there was this brutally awesome fan art of her with red eyes. So... even if it is not cannon, this is how it is going to be in this story. it won't matter in the long run because she keeps her eyes covered anyway, even if she does not wear the weird hat thingy.**

**Now, the ice queen has not melted and become docile, but there were a few reason why she is so contained. She is smart and was quickly able to comprehend that she is in a different world and is simply careful. World travel is not a new thing to her, with so many champions in the league been from other worlds. What she did not expect was to form bond with the Stark children. This is what I tried to point out with Bran's birth. That deep beneath all that ice she is still human. Plus, with her no longer been on Valoran, the watchers can no longer influence her and set her on the ice crusade that she has been on from the very beginning.**

**Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it, Review it if you did.**

**Thank you for reading.**


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